Tuesday, June 26, 2012

If Aaron Sorkin wrote THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW

Aaron Sorkin is back! I loved THE NEWSROOM. It's the perfect vehicle for his whip-smart dialogue. (It was also nice to see the wonderful Emily Mortimer finally not in a thankless role.)

But essentially THE NEWSROOM was BROADCAST NEWS as written by Aaron Sorkin. James L. Brooks wrote that terrific movie along with co-creating THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW. So that got me thinking -- what if Aaron Sorkin wrote THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW? Here, with great affection for Mr. Sorkin, is how I envision what a scene might look like:

MURRAY: You just learned you’re not part of the 17.8% of the population that has a venereal disease?

SUE ANN: Oh, Murray. Oh -- bald, condescending, working drone under the delusion that your pension will cover you in retirement despite inflation now at 4.3% while the cost of living rises at a rate of 11.5% -- Murray, you should be more worried than I. Those statistics are even higher for homosexuals.

LOU: It was Joan Rivers who Murray bumped into in the owner’s box at Metropolitan Stadium where the Twins were hosting the Tigers and beat them 4-2 on a come-from-behind double by Cesar Tovar. Time of game: 2:55. Paid attendance: 23,710.

MARY: Joan Rivers? That still doesn’t answer whether the source was a he or she?

SUE ANN: Or whether Cesar Tovar is related to Caesar Romero?

MARY: One’s with an extra ‘a’.

MURRY: How did you know, Lou? It was a private conversation. There was no one else in the suite. I’ve never told a living person.

LOU: I’m smart. Everyone who's smart on this show knows everything.

TED ENTERS.

TED: Lou, what is the name of that big glowing thingy in the sky? I think I saw it again.

LOU: That’s the sun, Ted.

TED: I knew you’d know, Lou. (then) Are you sure?

SUE ANN: Doesn’t anyone want to know why I’m in such a good mood?

MURRAY: Or why Cesar Tovar is missing an ‘a’?

TED: You got laid.

MURRAY: Wow. When even the dumb guy gets it...

LOU: You met a drunk insurance salesman at that new Tex-Mex place on Marquette – Diablo Cody’s. He was despondent that the life expectancy in the U.S. just climbed to 71.2, which means unless rates went up another 3.676548% the insurance industry will lose $6.2 billion this year and $8.5 the next. So you fellated him.

SUE ANN: You bet your missing ‘a’!

TED: Can I talk now?

MURRAY: I don’t know, Ted. Can you?

TED: Lou, he’s being insubordinating again.

LOU: What is it, Ted?

TED: Standing at the mirror doing my two-hour brow exercises this morning I came to a major revolution. News is boring. Our government does this, our soldiers are fighting that – who cares? What we need, in my humble but influenza opinion is this – bias. We should skew the news to what I believe in and ignore the rest.

MURRAY: But you’re an idiot, Ted.

TED: I like to think of myself as a registered voter.

SUE ANN: Now that I think about it, Aetna has an extra ‘a’.

MURRAY: That's a ridiculous idea, Ted. Worse even than you hosting a special on finding Al Capone's vault.

LOU: Not so fast, Murray. Ted, you may just have something there.

TED: I do? I mean, I do.

MARY: What? Oh, Mr. Grant!

LOU: No, no. Hear me out. America places 36th in literacy, 165th in attention span, 78th in learning English and there are only 73 English speaking countries, but we're 3rd in world ignorance.

TED: (proudly) God bless the U.S..

MURRAY: You’re missing another ‘a’.

LOU: We’re getting killed in the ratings by WHEEL OF FORTUNE…

SUE ANN: Doesn’t Merv Griffin own that show?

TED: He’s queer, y’know.

LOU: Maybe a newscast by a moron for morons is just where this country is heading.

ALL OVERLAPPING:

TED: And I'm the right man for the job!

MURRAY: But you can’t do that!

LOU: We gotta do something.

MURRAY: It’s wrong! It’s immoral!

SUE ANN: Immoral is fun!

MURRAY: What about integrity?

SUE ANN: I’m now covered for fire and floods.

TED: It’s my show. And I should be able to say what I want even if I don’t know what I’m saying!

MARY: Shut up, Ted! Do you know how hard it is to be single, alone, and yes, I’m beautiful and wear fabulous clothes, but despite the propaganda to the contrary, there is a glass ceiling for women and it’s lower than the moon roof on a Nova hatchback. According to the Horner study, we women internalize that high achievement will be rewarded in a fair society when in truth we are deceiving ourselves and sacrificing a part of our souls, not to mention our identities. The survey concluded that most women in the corporate world from the late ‘60s to early ‘70s would ultimately choose the traditional sex-role stereotype when faced with conflict between their feminine image and expressing their competence and interests. How sad is that? How completely dispiriting? And I can’t find a man! Even with my looks! Any yet, I refuse to give up my sunny disposition. I refuse to bow to the insidious cynicism that is creeping into our collective consciousness. And I refuse to blow insurance salesmen in order to have a social life! Or home protection! I may not be getting paid, and I may not be getting laid, but I am doing something important. I’m helping to inform the public. I’m helping to ensure that when it comes time to choose the leaders who will determine the very future for us and our children – well, your children. It doesn’t look like I’m having any anytime soon. But when we’re asked to make those crucial decisions, I want to make sure we're responsibly and accurately informed. Just because ceilings are glass doesn't mean windows have to be... although, yes, most of them are. But you get the idea. And you want to talk about ‘a’s that don’t belong – what do you need an ‘a’ in Murray for?

46 comments
:

Okay, that's just brilliant. Seems to me there should be a reboot of MTM for the 2010s... staring Claire Danes in the MTM role, Michael Imperioli in the Lou Grant role, Josh Hartnet as Ted, Tina Fey as Sue Ann, and Sean Hayes as Murray.

...and this is why I live for this blog. I'm a huge Sorkin fan and I grew up watching a lot of what Ken Levine wrote. To me, this is like a mash-up of Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain (except it's funnier).

Note to Ken: (this might actually be a Friday question, or a topic) Dead on. *And* entertaining. But Ken brought up a thought I've had for a long time (especially with the MTM Show) with the line "even though I wear fabulous clothes..." Although I loved (and still love watching the reruns) MTM, I noticed that the shows starting getting more "meh" about 3-4 seasons in, when Mary started wearing more-fabulous clothes, moved into a more-fabulous apartment, started wearing more-fabulous hair. The writing seemed to take a different direction, too -- more slick, more "L.A." It kinda seemed to lose a good bit of its original charm. Kinda like when Mike and Greg got perms on "The Brady Bunch." I even noticed the same thing as "The Bob Newhart Show" and even "That Girl" about halfway into their runs (you could probably argue Cher into that too when she went all Bob Mackie on "The Sonny & Cher Show". It wasn't exactly jumping the shark, but still ...

Note to Ken: (this might actually be a Friday question, or a topic) Dead on. *And* entertaining. But Ken brought up a thought I've had for a long time (especially with the MTM Show) with the line "even though I wear fabulous clothes..." Although I loved (and still love watching the reruns) MTM, I noticed that the shows starting getting more "meh" about 3-4 seasons in, when Mary started wearing more-fabulous clothes, moved into a more-fabulous apartment, started wearing more-fabulous hair. The writing seemed to take a different direction, too -- more slick, more "L.A." It kinda seemed to lose a good bit of its original charm. Kinda like when Mike and Greg got perms on "The Brady Bunch." I even noticed the same thing as "The Bob Newhart Show" and even "That Girl" about halfway inyo their runs. It wasn't exactly jumping the shark, but still ...

It's not that hard to write the Sorkin way. Just take a dose of mushrooms, 3 lines of quality cocaine (to begin with), pick a theme, and start typing.Start at 6 am, you'll have 3 scripts ready to shoot by midnight.

Great job, Ken. I started wondering, since the beginning of the scene reminded me of the opening of the "Chuckles Bites The Dust" episode, if Sorkin had written that episode, where would an obligatory speech about cruelty to circus animals fit in?

Goes to show, Ken, that you could be staff on The Newsroom and no one would be able to tell you apart from the original.

HOWEVER, The Newsroom looks to me like it's going to suck despite its great cast. I think Sorkin has already done TV on SPORTS NIGHT, and already done politics and the American Way on THE WEST WING (which copied SPORTS NIGHT quite a lot).

Now that the season has ended, I'm curious as to how you feel about The Newsroom now. I loved it, as did my friends and family. But the press has largely been pretty negative about it. Did you find yourself continuing to enjoy it? Or starting to agree with the critics?

Okay, so I read that. And in my mind I heard every one of their voices clear as a bell. Thank you for a wonderful way to wake up this Monday morning. Made me laugh more than I have in a long time. Most appreciated.

About KEN LEVINE

Named one of the BEST 25 BLOGS by TIME Magazine. Ken Levine is an Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer. In a career that has spanned over 30 years Ken has worked on MASH, CHEERS, FRASIER, THE SIMPSONS, WINGS, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, BECKER, DHARMA & GREG, and has co-created three series. He and his partner wrote the feature VOLUNTEERS. Ken has also been the radio/TV play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres. and Dodger Talk. He hosts the podcast HOLLYWOOD & LEVINE

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